BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 109 
ways : First, by the establishment of auxiliary field stations in those 
river basins which are to be stocked with shad. These stations should be 
properly equipped to give them a capacity of six or eight million eggs at one 
time. To these at the proper season a car can be dispatched carrying 
a full complement of eggs in one shipment, in this way quadrupling the 
present capacity of the cars in the work of distribution and reducing 
the cost of distribution per million pro tanto. Second, to increase the 
capacity of the producing stations so as to enable us to take care of all 
eggs at these stations until hatched. This would necessitate an increase 
in the number of cars for distribution ; one or two at least in addition 
would be needed to provide for the anticipated increase in the volume 
of this work. Full details of distribution by stations, showing the 
streams stocked, the locality of the plant, and the number planted in 
each case are herewith given. 
Washing-ton, D. 0., July 6, 1887. 
35.— THE FINWHAliE FISHERY ON THE LAPLAND COAST IN 1886. 
By ALFBEI) HENEAGE COCKS, F. Z. S. 
[Abstracted from tlie Zoologist, London, England, for June, 1887.] 
The finwhaling season of 1886 off the north coast of Norway and Rus- 
sia proved a good one as far as the number and size of the whales were 
concerned, but, owing to the continued low prices of oil and baleen, 
the result is not entirely satisfactory. 
Rudolphfis rorqual, which in 1885, for the first time on record, ap- 
peared in such large numbers to the eastward of the North Cape, in 
1886 confined itself again to its usual habitat, only 8 individuals being 
taken by ships of the companies having their stations to the east of 
that headland ; and it is quite likely that some, and possibly all of this 
small number, were actually killed to the west of Cape North. None 
were even seen by the Russian boats 
The blue whale reappeared last year in more like its former numbers; 
but there was an appreciable falling off in the catch of this species as 
regards the Norwegian coast, though apparently this was not the case 
in the eastward portion of the Russian waters. A comparison for 1884, 
1885, and 1886 of the numbers of common rorquals killed will show a 
steady increase, the totals for each company in 1886 averaging more 
than double the number obtained in 1884. The totals of humpbacks 
killed during each of these three years were very nearly the same. 
With regard to the time when the different species of finwhale ap- 
pear on the North European coast it may be stated that probably the 
first whale killed last year was a humpback, yielding about 39 barrels 
of oil, which was taken on February 24, Humpbacks are said to arrive 
on the east Finmark coast every February, but the weather was so bad 
